Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 02:03:42 -0800 From: "Taylor Dondich" <thexder@lvcm.com> To: <chat@freebsd.org> Subject: qmail replacement (Was: qmail, aka: Maintaining Access Control Lists ) Message-ID: <001901c1d3e4$59f9ec80$6600a8c0@penguin> References: <F61GQUEYvZmDvHbYxPo0000a6bd@hotmail.com><20020323002608.B20699@ra<p05101505b8c430e28572@[10.0.1.9]><000c01c1d3ab$6d2c6960$6600a8c0@penguin><p05101509b8c47b17d088@[10.0.1.8]><20020325015236.A97552@futuresouth.com> <p0510150eb8c48ba6b1f4@[10.0.1.8]>
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I like the points made, however this might seem to be brinking on the edge of a flame war. I can definately understand the mentality of not using a peice of software based on your experience with the author. A reflection of mentality goes into your work. And I can see where there are downsides to qmail's system. Sendmail seems to be the defacto, I can see why. Does anyone know of a way to implement sendmail in a virtual hosting scenario with the same flexability that qmail offers? I mean, I've seen a lot of "hacks" to get sendmail working with virtual hosting, things like setting up EACH individual user on each virtual host as a user on that server, but that's kind of ridiculous. I haven't really looked much further into the issue when I came across qmail tho. So do we have any ideas then? Taylor Dondich ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brad Knowles" <brad.knowles@skynet.be> To: "Tim" <tim@sleepy.wojomedia.com>; "Brad Knowles" <brad.knowles@skynet.be> Cc: "Taylor Dondich" <thexder@lvcm.com>; <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 12:46 AM Subject: Re: qmail (Was: Maintaining Access Control Lists ) > At 1:52 AM -0600 2002/03/25, Tim wrote: > > > You are kidding right? It looks to me that you are completely blinded by > > your disdain for Dan. You don't think Postfix took a lot of design hints > > from qmail? qmail is one of the most modular systems out there. > > Wietse saw qmail, and saw that there were a whole host of things > wrong with it. Moreover, he also knew that the author was > intractable, and there was no hope of ever getting any of these > problems fixed. Since he needed to have a subject for a particular > chapter of his upcoming book on "secure programming" that he is > writing with Dan Farmer, he took this subject matter and began the > VMailer project. This later became the program we now call postfix. > > IMO, qmail is modular in the same sense that a hammer is modular > -- you can use it to bang on whatever you want. Hmm, make that a > rock, and not a particularly sturdy one. > > > I'm sorry, if you haven't been doing Internet mail for around a > decade or so, and you haven't personally gone toe-to-toe with Dan > when he gets on one of his whacked-out kicks, you just don't have the > experience that you would need in order to be able to defend your > position. > > Contrariwise, anyone who has crossed swords with Dan, or seen one > of his many irrational tirades, can easily provide their personal > evidence of his behaviour problems. > > >> For example, you can't use the standard inetd that > >> ships with your system, you are instead forced to use his tcpserver. > >> And heaven help you if you need to do something that isn't covered by > >> his tools, because Dan sure won't. > > > >>From the INSTALL file on a qmail-1.03 distribution > > > > 16. Set up qmail-smtpd in /etc/inetd.conf (all on one line): > > smtp stream tcp nowait qmaild /var/qmail/bin/tcp-env > > tcp-env /var/qmail/bin/qmail-smtpd > > Try that with tinydns or dnscache. I was talking about a general > philosophy that Dan applies, not necessarily the specific > implementation found in qmail. Moreover, you still haven't answered > the issue of the size of the configuration file, or the number of > lines required. Can you actually do anything useful with any program > written by Dan in two lines of configuration file? > > > the qmail user community is more than sufficient for support. > > Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Just like C makes a perfectly good macro language. > > > I like Postfix myself, but you are so blatantly biased I am not sure you > > are any better than what you are accusing Dan of. > > I loathe and despise Dan, that is correct. I am perfectly honest > and upfront about that. And because I do not trust the author as far > as I can bodily throw his planet of residence, I do not trust the > code that he writes. Moreover, because of the reality distortion > field that he seems to manifest, I also don't trust anything > associated with any of the programs he writes. > > > I've been using Unix and the Internet since 1984 -- almost twenty > years. I've been administering Unix and the Internet since 1989 -- > thirteen years. I've been doing DNS and Internet mail system > administration since sometime around 1991, so about eleven years. > > In that time, I have been the Technical POC for disa.mil, I > helped set up the DOD CERT (assist.mil) in just seven days from mere > concept to operational reality (at a time when there was just a > single NIC, and the root zone was only updated once a week), I was > the Postmaster and Internet mail systems administrator for over > 10,000 users on the DISAnet network, and one of my "customers" was > the Milnet Manager himself (Major Dave Paciorkowski at the time). I > was also responsible for turning in a number of Class A and B network > numbers that were not being used, as well as convincing the SIPRnet > folks (the people on the classified side) that they should use the > DNS and not HOSTS.TXT files, and that they should use real network > numbers assigned by the NIC, in case there ever was a time in the > distant future when they were connected to the real Internet. > > I have also been the Sr. Internet Mail Systems Administrator for > America Online, responsible for providing technical leadership to the > team administering well over a hundred servers that provided the > e-mail gateway to/from the Internet for millions and millions of AOL > customers. I also designed what is probably still the worlds largest > caching nameserver farm while I was at AOL, benchmarked at being > capable of handling 32,000-64,000 DNS queries per second. > > I have also been a Sr. Consultant for Collective Technologies, a > leading Unix/Internet consulting firm in the US. While at CT, I > consulted for a number of companies, including some of the largest > freemail service providers in the world. I have also been the > Systems Architect for Belgacom Skynet, the largest ISP in Belgium. I > have given classes on DNS for the company Men & Mice, using material > written by Cricket Liu (and I will be doing so again at SANE 2002). > I will soon again be a Sr. Consultant, this time for Snow BV in the > Netherlands, another leading Unix/Internet consulting company in > Europe. > > > In all the time I've been in this business, and with all my > hard-earned experience, I have found damn few programs that can stand > up to the rigors of the kind of work that I have done. > > With regards to being a general-purpose MTA, sendmail is at the > top of that list, especially with recent improvements that allow it > to be as fast or faster than anything else on the planet. I also > have very high regard for postfix, and I have heard a lot of good > things about Exim (although I regret that I have not yet had an > opportunity to do any work with it). I have had more or less > negative experiences with every other MTA that I have encountered, > and qmail ranks below dog poop in my book. IMO, you would literally > be better off flinging canine excrement than using qmail. > > With regards to nameservers, there simply is nothing else > publicly available to compare with BIND. Yes, some companies have > developed internal nameserver programs that they have used to help > them provide service at an unequalled level (e.g., Nominum), but > those programs are not publicly available. Of the programs that are > available, BIND wins hands-down. > > > If you can show me a comparable level of experience and talent on > your part, then I'd be very interested in having a private in-depth > discussion on the relative merits and demerits of various programs > with you, including discussions of detailed benchmarks that you have > run as compared to benchmarks that I have run, etc.... > > However, unless you are willing and able to function on this > level, I doubt that there is anything you're likely to bring to this > debate that I would find useful or interesting. > > -- > Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles@skynet.be> > > Do you hate Microsoft? Do you hate Outlook? Then visit the Anti-Outlook > page at <http://www.rodos.net/outlook/>; and see how much fun you can have. > > "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary > safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." > -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania. > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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